Amanda Knox headed home to the US a free woman yesterday, the morning after an Italian appeals court dramatically overturned her conviction of sexually assaulting and brutally slaying her British roommate.
The Italy-US Foundation, which has championed Knox’s cause, said she departed shortly after noon from Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci airport on the way to London, from where she will catch a connecting flight to the US.
The 24-year-old Knox, who is returning to Seattle, arrived at the airport in a Mercedes with darkened windows and waited for boarding inside a private waiting area, out of public view.
Photo: AFP
Back in Perugia, the family of slain British student Meredith Kercher remained stunned by the verdict and they were searching for answers.
“It was a bit of a shock,” said Stephanie Kercher, the victim’s older sister. “It’s very upsetting ... We still have no answers.”
Brother Lyle Kercher said the family was still trying to understand how a decision that “was so certain two years ago has been so dramatically overturned.”
He said the family had been left to wonder who is guilty in his 21-year-old sister’s death after the release of Knox and her one-time boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, on appeal. A third man, Rudy Hermann Guede, has been convicted in the brutal slaying, but his trial concluded he did not act alone. Guede is serving a 16-year sentence.
“If the two released yesterday were not the guilty parties, we are obviously left to wonder who is the other guilty person or people. We are left back at square one,” Lyle Kercher said.
Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini expressed disbelief at the verdict and vowed an appeal to Italy’s highest criminal court.
“Let’s wait and we will see who was right. The first court or the appeal court,” Mignini said. “This trial was done under unacceptable media pressure. The decision was almost already announced. This is not normal.”
If the highest court overturns the acquittal, prosecutors would be free to request Knox’s extradition to Italy to finish whatever remained of her sentence. It would be up to the Italian government to decide whether it makes such a request.
Knox and Sollecito were convicted in 2009 of sexually assaulting and murdering Kercher, a 21-year-old British student who shared an apartment with Knox in Perugia. Knox was sentenced to 26 years, Sollecito to 25.
However, the prosecution’s case was blown apart by a court-ordered DNA review that discredited crucial genetic evidence.
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